Produced by Grammy® and Blues Music Award Winner Tom Hambridge and featuring a team of veteran studio and touring professionals including special guests Bobby Rush and Mike Zito

Jim Allchin, the American blues-rock guitarist, philanthropist, and a former software executive, is releasing his fourth widely distributed contemporary blues album: Prime Blues, produced by Producer and Grammy®, ASCAP and Blues Music Award winner Tom Hambridge, whose production credits include: Buddy Guy, Marcia Ball, Susan Tedeschi and James Cotton, among many others.

Hambridge stated: "I'm so very proud of this major step forward in Jim's journey as a Bluesman. We had an absolute blast co-writing some of the songs, planning and recording Prime Blues and we're anxious for blues fans around the globe to hear these incredible tunes and performances."

Featured in Apple Music and receiving wide critical acclaim, Allchin's last LP, Decisions, topped Contemporary Blues and Blues Rock charts for months and was named a Top 20 Blues Rock Album of 2017 by the venerable Roots Music Report. The LP registered nearly 1 million plays on Spotify.

Allchin adds: "The title Prime Blues refers to both my love of the blues as well as my love of mathematics. Prime Blues is more concentrated blues than my past albums and at the same time more diverse in terms of style, guitar technique, and guitar tone. Each song tells a story - about an experience, life observation, or my life philosophy in general. I hope you find some of these songs just flat out fun!"

Jim Allchin Notes:

Jim Allchin is an American blues-rock guitarist, computer scientist, and philanthropist. He grew up on a farm in the deep South, left to earn Masters / Doctorate degrees from Stanford University and Georgia Institute of Technology and went on to become a recognized leader in Computer Science and Software. While growing up in the south, I fell in love with the Blues. I have played it ever since. He has written, performed, and recorded throughout his life.

His newest album, Prime Blues, is his fourth widely-available solo album and second produced by 2x Grammy-winner Tom Hambridge. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered in Nashville. Prime Blues features 14 new tracks performed by an all-star group of musicians including bassist Glenn Worf, rhythm guitarists Rob McNelley, Bob Britt and Kenny Greenburg, keyboardist Kevin McKendree, drummer Tom Hambridge, vocalist Mycle Wastman, The Memphis Horns and special guest vocalists Grammy-winner Bobby Rush, and Blues Award winner Mike Zito.

"I started playing music in my early teens. My first instrument was the trumpet. I became fairly capable, but my teeth got loose and kept cutting my lips to the point of bleeding when I was going for the high notes. So, I saved up money and bought a acoustic guitar. Here's me singing (on the right) at a studio when I was a teenager.

I grew up in the deep south. I learned to play by listening to blues players and latin players or even new groups at the time (e.g., Allman Brothers). I traveled around playing in bands and writing music - mostly blues rock. I met some amazing musicians. I played 16+ hours a day. And I learned to hard lesson in the music business: being good matters, but there are lots of great musicians - luck matters too."

lunes, 15 de octubre de 2018

On Her 4th Album “We Should Have Danced”, Kris Adams Sings the Music of Steve Prosser

Available October 15, 2018

Jazzbird Records is proud to announce the October 15th release of Kris Adams’ long-awaited fourth album We Should Have Danced: The Music of Steve Prosser. Featuring Adams’ original lyrics and arrangements by pianist Tim Ray, We Should Have Danced is a deeply personal, poignant collection of music featuring the compositions of the late Steve Prosser, Adams’ former husband. The released of We Should Have Danced celebrated on September 4th at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City.

Beloved and respected by so many, Prosser lived a remarkable life as a Berklee College of Music professor for over thirty years; a decade of which was spent helming the ear training department as its chairman. On campus, Prosser was known for his passionate teaching style, talented musicianship and his larger than life persona. Prosser and Adams met at Berklee in 1981 and married in 1987. Though they separated in 2006, they remained close friends. “Besides being a master teacher, Steve was a vocalist, composer, jazz pianist, lawyer and bird lover. He loved to have his ear training students transcribe bird songs. And he and I had a running joke around the house. He would quiz me on which bird song we were hearing in the yard. Music was everything to him. Composing and arranging was something he loved to do but didn’t have the desire to put his music out there. But I loved his music so making this CD is my gift to him,” says Adams.

After Prosser’s passing in 2012 at the age of 60, Adams came across a folder titled “Songs for CD” amongst the items left behind for her. Inside was a trove of Steve’s original music with many of the tunes having been written during their 19 year marriage. Inspired in some cases by Prosser’s poetry and in other cases, by the melodies themselves, Adams wrote lyrics to some of her favorites which then were arranged by Tim Ray. “My mind was filled with images and emotions, searching to put into words what I felt from the music that he wrote,” says Adams. Bassist Paul Del Nero and flautist Fernando Brandão were then added to enrich the project.

Standout tracks include the autobiographical album opener “Prophecy”, which tells of the couples’ first meeting, the poignant “Summer Moon Above", which features lyrics pulled from Prosser’s original poem “Less Than Nothing” and the hauntingly beautiful album closer “Without You”, which Prosser originally titled “For Kris”. Funny and quirky, Prosser titled one song “Mumbling” which Adams retitled “Imaginings” after writing the lyric. All of the songs were retitled by Adams except for the title track, “We Should Have Danced”.

Four years in the making, “We Should Have Danced” is a poignant and commemorative body of music that not only celebrates the genius of Steve Prosser but the palpable love of these two creative musicians.

“Simply put, this is the story of our lives lived together”.

Kris Adams Notes::Kris Adams began singing at an early age having grown up in a music loving family. Her grandfather played organ by ear and her mother played piano. Kris began singing on stage in a touring children’s theater as a young teenager and had her first professional gigs at the age of 19 in Connecticut, singing in a latin-jazz band that the late saxophonist Tom Chapin was a member of.

Kris left Hartford to attend Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. She released her first CD, “This Thing Called Love” in 1999 and her second, “Weaver of Dreams” in 2002. Both were collaborations with pianist/arranger, Steve Prosser. She recorded her third disc, "Longing" in collaboration with trumpeter/arranger, Greg Hopkins. Kris has shared the stage with Joe Lovano, Wayne Escoffery, Lee Musiker, Cameron Brown, Billy Drummond, Bill Pierce, Harvie S, Jay Leonhart and Michelle Hendricks.

Kris is currently on faculty at Berklee and is author of the book “Sing Your Way Through Theory” (Hal Leonard). She has performed and given clinics in New England, New York, Los Angeles, Brazil, Germany and Italy, at the Fara Sabina Jazz Festival alongside Jonathan Kreisberg, Kevin Hays, Reuben Rogers and Gregory Hutchinson.

"This album was born from beauty and friction. It is my love letter to the east and west coasts: the craggy edges of the east, the vast expanse of the west, and all the dark alleyways in between."- AR

Why Noir? That haunting sax solo line running through Taxi Driver, the distant blow of a conch and those voodoo drums from I Walked With A Zombie... shadings of light and shadow... music and images that left a stamp of recognition on me like a raised brand I couldn't get rid of. That post-war, atomic age desperation still ripples that dark lake off Highway 2. Femme fatale, Lady Fate, I never know quite what she has in store for me. All I can do is surrender and go for a ride. She drives like the night, blinded but knowing, to a destination of her own choosing.

Music Noir in a post-modern world."Her voice is a bit deeper and fuller, but her phrasing, her use of occasional melisma, and the breathy sexiness of her sound call to mind Morgana King. I mean this as high praise."- Gerry Geddes

"Although many vocalists have included torch singing in their repertoire, few have made it a specialty as has Abigail Rockwell. With her breathy, smoky voice and sultry demeanor, she is most reminiscent of Julie London. What Rockwell brings to this table of torch is poetry."- Marilyn Lester

Abigail comes from a family of artists. Her biography is in her work.

"All I could think of was the guy with the saxophone and what he was playing. It wasn't a love song anymore, it was a dirge." - Detour, 1945